


to deserve better

by labyrinthsend



Series: no love lost [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 12:40:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labyrinthsend/pseuds/labyrinthsend
Summary: Kiyoshi battles insecurity, Hyuuga fights with his emotions and Hayama, and Riko takes on the patriarchy.





	to deserve better

**Author's Note:**

> HA, I bet you all thought I'd abandoned this series forever, but you were wrong! I just really struggled to understand Kiyoshi's mindspace for the longest time. This is part one of three, but I can't guarantee that it won't take another six months to write...

one. kiyoshi

Kasamatsu-senpai asks, "Why are you so hard on yourself?" 

Kiyoshi opens his mouth to deny that he is, but then he thinks, really thinks about it because now that he's been asked point-blank about it, it seems like there might be an answer to that question somewhere in his mind. He quiets as he tries to chase that feeling down, but his thoughts are strange and blurred around the edges and he feels like the truth is too slippery and formless to grasp in his fingers.

He thinks, suddenly, of the first time he had met Riko. She'd looked over him and the other basketball team hopefuls with a flatness to her gaze that he hadn't understood, dismissing him in a glance before moving on to do the same to the rest of them. _I'm not interested in anyone who's not aiming for the top._

"Nope, consultation booth is closed for real now," Kasamatsu-senpai says before Kiyoshi can get any words out, "Think on that and we'll talk about it later. Let's head back."

Kiyoshi doesn't even remember the trip back because he's so caught up in his own head. Before he knows it, he's arrived back at his apartment and is taking his coat and shoes off like someone else had seized control of his body while he was thinking about ex-girlfriends (or, ex-girlfriend, singular).

Hyuuga looks up from his laptop with the desperate eyes of someone who has cut themselves off from the world in an attempt to finish a major term paper in two days. "Tell me," he demands and then says, "No! Don't tell me! I'm not done yet! Give me twenty minutes," and then dives back into his work.

Kiyoshi can't help the feeling of fondness that wells up in his chest. He rubs the skin over his chest absently as he goes into his own room and then sits down on his bed heavily, puts his head in his hands, tries to align the Riko in his memories with the same girl who'd stood next to him today, cheering for their old high school basketball team and slapping him multiple times in the arm in her excitement when Kagami had pulled through at the end with a buzzer beater.

He'd pulled her into his arms then, partly in self-defense and partly for more selfish reasons. The feeling of her warmth in his arms again, reveling in the strength of her small body, of her heart. The memory of it puts his heart in his throat and a flush on his cheeks, but guilt weighs his heart back down when he hears Hyuuga in the other room cursing too loudly at his lecture notes.

Kiyoshi throws himself on his back on the bed and closes his eyes. 

_Later,_ he thinks, and closes his eyes, falls into an uneasy sleep without changing out of his clothes. 

 

-

 

Kiyoshi wakes up to a furious buzzing next to his ear. "Wha-?" It's his phone. He answers it, squinting in confusion at his alarm clock because it insists on being read as 8:23. He croaks out, "Hello?"

"Hey, sleeping beauty," Riko says, fond and amused in his ear. 

Flushing wildly, Kiyoshi sits up too fast and the world spins. "I was supposed to meet you and Hyuuga at the station 20 minutes ago." He starts pulling off his clothes — he wants to take quick shower since he'd forgotten to last night.

"Yeah," she says, "but I was already expecting this. How do you guys get to morning practice on time?" 

Kiyoshi misses if she says anything else after that because he has to put his phone down while he's pulling his shirt off. To be honest, he only makes it to morning practice on time because Hyuuga is actually a morning person and has taken charge of dragging Kiyoshi out of bed for it. He brings the phone back up to his ear. "Hyuuga's not there with you?" He wraps a a towel around his waist and heads to the shower.

"No, he didn't show up either. Maybe he didn't finish the paper? I'm just walking over to your apartment now," Riko says, cheerfully and without recrimination. 

It reminds Kiyoshi of getting lost on his way to meet her on their first date, a panicked sort of dread settling in his bones because he _really_ liked her and she didn't even forgive people for being only on time for practice. When he'd finally found her, thirty minutes after he had texted her that he might be ten minutes late and panting heavily, she had blinked at him and said, "Were you running around here this whole time?" and broken into peals of laughter when he could only nod helplessly, not having enough breath to speak.

Riko outside of basketball isn't Coach Riko, sharp and demanding and never happy with only one hundred percent of what you thought you could do. He remembers dating Riko as a few months of overwhelming contentedness found in secret smiles exchanged across classrooms, texts about the team and basketball techniques, and her fingers entangled in his shirt when she kissed him, as much about pulling herself up to meet him as it was about pulling him down.

"I'll unlock the door for you so you can let yourself in," Kiyoshi promises. He is startled to see an unfamiliar lump on the table when he goes to do so. Upon closer inspection, he realizes it's Hyuuga, passed out on top of his closed laptop. 

"Teppei?" Riko inquires, voice lilting up curiously at the end. 

"Oh," he says, "I'm unlocking the door now. Hyuuga's asleep on the table though."

"Let him sleep," Riko says, and then too gleefully, "I'll wake him up for you when I get there."

"Sure," Kiyoshi says, amused. He hangs up without saying goodbye and sets his phone on the table next to Hyuuga's head, half-hoping Hyuuga will wake up and be spared whatever Riko has in store. He wonders, idly and without bitterness, what it must be like for Hyuuga to kiss her.

Hyuuga doesn't even twitch. It makes that familiar bubble of fondness expand in his chest, and Kiyoshi leaves him there to Riko's tender mercies.

The shower feels good, the hot water easing his muscles. They're sore from a recent increase of practice, a more rigorous regimen than he had previously been allowed and one he had meticulously planned and put together by himself with input from his physical therapist and approved by Riko's discerning eye.

He's almost finished when Hyuuga screams, "Ow, what the _hell_ , Riko!"

"I promised Teppei I'd wake you up when I got here." Kiyoshi chuckles at the faux-innocence of her voice, can hear how pleased she is with herself under the disingenuousness of her answer.

"Kiyoshi!" Hyuuga roars, and Kiyoshi rubs at his hair one more time before tying the towel around his waist and exiting the bathroom.

"Yes?" he responds, trying to match Riko's tone, and blinks innocently at Hyuuga. He finds it difficult to restrain a smile at the outrage on Hyuuga's face and the way it purples in anger when Kiyoshi enters his sight.

"Put on a shirt or something!" Hyuuga snaps, and runs a hand roughly though his hair and over his face in one smooth motion. Riko sits at the table and ducks her head to examine a page of Hyuuga's notes. 

That reminds him, actually. "Did you finish your paper?" Kiyoshi asks, hopefully. "You're coming to the game with us?"

Hyuuga rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah," he says. "You sure you want me to come?"

"Why wouldn't we?" Kiyoshi asks confused, and considers the matter settled, so he goes to find a hairdryer (they have three, all of which seem to appear and disappear at their own leisure) and changes into clothes that he hadn't been wearing yesterday.

By the time he's done, Hyuuga has changed and is chatting with Riko while she gets her boots back on, his eyes soft and adoring as he gruffly asks Riko questions about her classes. Too late, Kiyoshi realizes he's missed an opportunity to play sick and let them have a chance to be alone together.

He's not quite smooth enough to pull something off like that now. Instead Kiyoshi asks, "Ready to go?"

Hyuuga huffs at him, shooting him an impatient look out of the corner of his eye. "We were waiting for _you._ "

"Ah," Kiyoshi says apologetically, smiling involuntarily at the familiar back-and-forth.

"Let's go then," Riko says, already half out the door and grinning at the both of them. The pale morning light filters in around the space she occupies, her shadow stretching into their apartment and swinging back and forth as she rocks forward and back onto her toes.

She leads the way, Hyuuga at her heels and Kiyoshi trailing behind. As always, as usual. Kiyoshi puts his hands in his pockets rather than tweak the too-long ends of Riko's hair. She's growing it out again. He doesn't know why.

By the time they get to the stadium, the game has already started. Kaijou leads 12 to 6. The stands are packed tightly enough to see the rival teams play that when they finally find Izuki and the three seats he'd saved them, Izuki is spread eagle-style over four seats with his eyes closed.

"So I can't see the judgment in people's eyes," Izuki explains as the three of them take their seats. "I'm a sensitive soul, you see, and the unforgiving gaze of society is cruel." Hyuuga takes the seat at his best friend's side, and Riko sits next to him and Kiyoshi sits next to her.

Behind them, Kasamatsu grumbles, "I can't believe I expose myself to you people willingly."

"Kasamatsu-senpai!" Riko and Kiyoshi gasp, nearly in unison. Hyuuga just makes a soft noise of distress to see him.

Kasamatsu glares back down at them. "I'm not your senpai today," he tells them flatly. "Today I'm the former captain of Kaijou and you are my enemy."

Moriyama leans around Kasamatsu to wave at them. "Hey, Seirin," he says.

"We're not in high school anymore," Hyuuga mutters, but he gets into the rivalry of it pretty quickly, turning around to smirk smugly at their senpai when Kagami slam-dunks the ball into the hoop, closing the gap between their scores.

Both teams have to fight for every point they score. Almost involuntarily, Kiyoshi finds his eyes drawn towards Kagami or Kise. "I wonder what they'll do after they graduate?" he muses to himself, but Riko hears him and leans into his arm with her eyes gleaming like she knows something he doesn't.

"Are you talking about the third years or the Generation of Miracles?" she asks him. Hyuuga drags his eyes away from the game to look at them curiously, making Izuki turn his attention to them as well.

Put on the spot, Kiyoshi flushes and admits, "The Generation of Miracles. I mean — it would be amazing if they all went pro, but…" He trails off, and Riko nods as if she knows what he's thinking.

"Hard to say, isn't it," she says. "Playing it in school isn't quite the same as making it a career."

"It almost seems like a waste for them not to though," Hyuuga says wistfully. Kiyoshi rubs his knee absently at that, thinking about talent and conditioning and sacrifices made.

Izuki says, "I bet Kagami will go pro."

"I'm not Kagami even knows how to do anything other than basketball," Hyuuga says grimly, his eyebrows drawing together in consternation.

"He's pretty good at cooking?" Kiyoshi offers, and carefully does not let his eyes drift down to Riko.

"I heard he's going to go to one of those international universities," Riko says in a stage whisper, "The ones where they teach half the classes in English?"

"Can you even participate in the Intercollegiate competitions if you go there?" Izuki asks.

"Someone as talented as Kagami is bound to have offers from a lot of good schools with decent basketball programs," Kiyoshi muses. Out of nowhere, someone raps him _hard_ on the back of the head, and then moves on to do the same to Riko, Hyuuga, then Izuki at a precise and mercilessly even pace, turning their series of 'ow's into an odd type of music.

"Could you stop gossiping?" Kasamatsu snaps at them. "Are you going to watch the game or not?"

"Yes, senpai," they all chorus, making him glare at them harder.

Moriyama grins at them. "I'm so glad you came to our school," he sighs happily. "I was so worried that Kasamatsu would feel empty without his favorite kouhai to commit violence against—"

"Fuck off, Moriyama," Kasamatsu says.

"—but here you four are," Moriyama continues, as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Too cheeky and determined for your own good, Kasamatsu's favorite kind of underclassmen to abuse."

Kasamatsu makes a noise of strangled disbelief. "I don't _abuse_ them," he says, affronted, but then wrinkles his brow at them. "Do I?"

"No, senpai," they chorus as one again.

"Please stop that," Kasamatsu groans. Riko giggles, and Izuki and Hyuuga look way too pleased with themselves.

It occurs to Kiyoshi that none of them have had a proper senpai since junior high school. He looks at Kasamatsu rubbing his face unhappily and Moriyama's shit-eating grin and thinks that they've found some pretty good new ones to restart with.

The four of them settle down, just in time to see Kise shoot an impossible three pointer courtesy of Midorima. Kasamatsu and Moriyama shout encouragement while Hyuuga and Izuki boo energetically.

Riko is practically vibrating at his side. There's something she's remembered now that she wants to tell him; it'll burst out of her sooner or later, but he's curious now. If it's something that is keeping her from focusing on the match, it's something really big.

Kiyoshi nudges her leg with his and whispers, "What is it?" under the racket that their friends are making.

She blinks up at him, and then smile lights up her face. "You know me too well," Riko admits quietly, and then warns him, "You really can't tell anyone."

"I won't," he promises, and then nearly has a heart attack when Riko clamors onto her knees on her seat so she can cup her hands around his ear. Her breath is soft and warm and trembling with excitement.

"I got Momoi," Riko whispers into his ear.

Stunned, Kiyoshi leans back a little to gape at her. She's grinning so hard that his face burns with sympathetic pain and he whoops, throws an arm around her middle and pulls her into an awkward embrace, her lower rib cage pressed uncomfortably against his jaw. "You're a genius!" he tells her stomach, and she pushes him away so she can sit down in her seat properly.

"I know," she says smugly. She crosses her arms and focuses on the game again, a self-satisfied look on her face.

Hyuuga is looking at Kiyoshi over Riko's head, his brow slightly furrowed and a frown on his face. Kiyoshi rubs the back of his neck, realizing what it must have looked like to him. Always too late. He wishes he were better at being Hyuuga's friend.

Izuki puts a hand on Hyuuga's shoulder, and then Hyuuga turns back to the game without saying anything.

Kiyoshi does the same.

 

-

 

Kasamatsu and Moriyama walk out of the stadium with them after the matches for the day are done, Kasamatsu complaining bitterly at them. "Your school was the inspiring underdog story two years ago," he bites out, glaring. "Give some other school a chance!"

"Sorry," Hyuuga drawls, and gets kicked in the ass. 

"You don't sound sorry!" Kasamatsu shouts at him and flicks his ear, hard.

Hyuuga grinds his teeth and starts rolling up his sleeves. "That's it," he says, "I don't care if you're my upperclassman, I'm taking you down."

"Now, now," Izuki says peaceably, but takes out his phone to start recording instead of actually doing anything to stop them.

"You are my favorite first year," Moriyama says, pleased. He already has his phone out.

Riko points out, "We lost the Winter Cup last year to Rakuzan." No one is listening, and she doesn't push the point. 

Kiyoshi is willing to bet his heart on the fact she'd probably taken that harder than anyone. He buries his hands in his pockets and tries not to feel guilty for not being there or jealous that Hyuuga had been. He had still been in America at that time, working with Alex and the team of physical therapists and doctors that she'd somehow put together. He focuses on feeling proud of his team, of Riko's team, of _Riko_ , for pulling through again and proving to everyone that Seirin wasn't just some one hit wonder.

A familiar voice bursts through the commotion that Hyuuga and Kasamatsu are making. "Kasamacchi-senpai!" They all turn, surprised to see Kise.

Kasamatsu lets go of Hyuuga's hair, and they both straighten up and try to casually smooth away the evidence of their childishness.

"Kise," Kasamatsu says, "Seriously, stop calling me that."

"Kasamacchi-senpai," Kise responds in direct opposition to him, pouting, "Why are you cavorting with the enemy?"

Kasamatsu sputters. "I'm not _cavorting with the enemy_ , they're my underclassmen from school—"

"I was your underclassman first!" Kise declares, "I deserve more of your loyalty!"

Kiyoshi sees it coming before Kise does, and winces in sympathy when Kasamatsu dropkicks him in the face. Kise goes down like a sack of potatoes. "Ungrateful brat," Kasamatsu snaps at him.

"Now, now," Moriyama says soothingly, still recording.

Kise, sprawled on the ground, rubs his face and says quietly to the floor, "Is it weird that I kind of missed this?"

"Yes," Moriyama, Izuki, and Hyuuga say at once.

"Shut up!" Kasamatsu says defensively, and then grabs Kise's collar to drag him off. "We'll be right back." Kise lets himself get pulled away, his head still drooping down so that his long fringe obscures his face.

Moriyama looks at the rest of them. "I've been abandoned," he says dramatically, and drapes himself over Izuki and wails with impressive commitment into his shoulder. Izuki, straight-faced, pats him on the shoulder.

Kiyoshi's phone chooses that time to begin emitting a high-pitched whining noise. "Um!" he exclaims, and starts digging through his pockets, uncomfortably aware of everyone's eyes on him. "I'm sorry, I think Hayama must have messed with my phone again—" He answers his phone with a quick flick across the screen. "Hello?"

"PAPA BEAR HELLO," Hayama shouts into his ear. 

It takes Kiyoshi a moment to understand why there's an echo, which means he is not at all prepared when Hayama turns out to have been right behind him and begins to climb up onto his shoulders. He stumbles under the unexpected weight, but manages to right himself before planting the both of them face-first into the cement. 

Hayama apologizes profusely as he climbs. "I need the leverage! I am looking for — it's Alex Garcia! It's Alex Garcia! Let me down, Papa Bear, if I do not get her autograph, I will die." 

"That's dire," Kiyoshi says, as non-judgmentally as he can. "You know she's Seirin's coach right now?"

"She's _what_?" Hayama gasps, swinging his head down to look Kiyoshi upside down in the face. "How could you not tell me that?!"

"How did you not know that?" Hyuuga demands, rubbing his temples. "Get off of Kiyoshi, he's not some kind of pedestal."

"I don't need you to say that to _me_ ," Hayama says, sounding rather offended, which is a very strange thing for him to say. Kiyoshi looks to Riko for explanation, but she looks stricken, her eyes locked onto Hayama with inexplicable distress. His stomach flips and he looks away from her.

It's nothing. He doesn't need to know. Wordlessly, he refocuses his attention on helping Hayama back down to the ground, careful not to strain his knee too much, and then Hayama's off to hunt Alex down.

He turns back to the rest of the group, smiling disarmingly. "He's a handful."

Moriyama shakes his head. "He's an odd one, alright. What kind of person goes from a high school like Rakuzan to our school? Our school's not shabby, but it's not really on the same level as Rakuzan. With his tuition money to Rakuzan, he could probably pay school fees for everyone on the team for all four years of uni."

Izuki is conspicuously silent as he watches Hayama run off. Hyuuga is watching Izuki carefully and Moriyama is still rubbing his chin, lost in thought. Kiyoshi doesn't look at Riko to see how she's doing, because that is when Kasamatsu returns, without Kise.

"He's gone back to his team for now," Kasamatsu says, his tone weary and too solemn. "There's still another chance for the third years this year, but it's still a heavy blow. Moriyama—"

"Yeah, let's head out," Moriyama says suddenly. "Catch you later, kids. Don't let the bed-bugs bite." He holds out a fist for them to bump. "Good game, Seirin."

"We're not Seirin anymore," Hyuuga grumbles, but they all return the fist-bump. Kasamatsu nods at them, as if reassuring them that there's no hard feelings between them, and the two of them head out.

Izuki shoves his hands deep in his pockets. "They're good senpai."

"Let's go be good senpai too," Kiyoshi suggests. There's a lukewarm response, a couple distracted nods and Hyuuga scuffing his toe into the ground, but they group together again and head back into the stadium to find the Seirin team.

 

-

 

They're not difficult to find, but they hang back when they see that the Seirin team is still in the middle of cooling down. Kagami is going around, exchanging a quick word with each person, checking their condition and offering words of advice when he thinks someone needs it.

Kagami, it has to be said, is an incredible captain, which is amazing mostly because he doesn't seem to be doing it on purpose. He's just naturally charismatic and encouraging, somehow always ready with the right thing to say to fire players up or get their head back in the game. It's easy to see how much the people on his team respect and like him by the way they look at him, by the way they clamor over him and yet settle down the moment he raises his hand up for attention.

He's a different captain than Hyuuga, not better, not worse. Just Kagami.

"You made the right choice when you chose him to be captain over Furihata," Kuroko says from next to Riko, making her and Hyuuga shriek in surprise.

"Kuroko, could you _not do that_?" Riko demands.

"I apologize, Coach," he says. "Or — former Coach?" Kuroko frowns, his eyebrows drawing together slightly as he considers.

Riko gives him a smile that shows way too many teeth.

"Coach," Kuroko says quickly, "Always Coach."

Kagami catches sight of them. It is strangely gratifying to see the way his face lights up when he sees them. He wraps up his conversation with one of the first-years, Kiyoshi assumes because he doesn't recognize the kid, and heads over to talk to them.

"Senpai!" he says, pleased, and slaps all of them heartily on the shoulder in greeting, even Riko. Riko handles it better than both Hyuuga and Izuki, who stumble off balance for a second and wince. Kiyoshi is slightly smug that he's able to keep his balance just fine, though he is too winded to return the gesture properly. Luckily, Riko is there to slap Kagami mercilessly on the back in response for all of them.

"Kagami!" she says fondly, and pats him (gently) on the cheek. "You're doing great. Not that I doubted you."

Kagami eyes her suspiciously, but shrugs. He self-consciously straightens his back so that he's towering over her more than usual and says, "It's been — yes. Good. I'm… not as bad at it as I thought I might be. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing all the time, though."

Hyuuga laughs at him. "Welcome to captaincy," he says. "You're doing well. Just trust your team. They'll let you know if you ever mess up too badly."

"Yes, we would be sure to let you know if something was wrong right away," Kuroko says, too seriously.

Kagami scowls. "You let me walk around with toilet paper trailing off my shoe for the whole day last Tuesday."

"It was good for morale," Kuroko says without a trace of guilt.

Kagami mutters under his breath some more, then shifts his weight nervously to one foot and then the other before folding his arms in front of his chest. "We're going to have a, a team dinner at my place after this. I'm sure the second-years would be excited to see you all again."

Kiyoshi looks at Riko, who looks at Hyuuga, who blinks at Kiyoshi before turning to Izuki.

Izuki throws his hands up into the air in exasperation. "Just say yes!" he exclaims.

"Yes," they say in unison.

"Cute," Kuroko comments, and avoids Kiyoshi's eyes when he turns to look at the younger boy curiously.

Kagami's cheeks go pink with pleasure. He covers it up with a cough and a gruff, "Furihata's going to be excited to hear this," and then goes off, presumably to find his vice-captain.

Hyuuga actually giggles a little, but coughs loudly to cover it when everyone turns to look at him.

 

-

 

The dinner is good. The company is good, even the first years, who are slightly too intimidated by the already-graduated senpai to make any sort of meaningful conversation but manage to get across a genuine and enthusiastic passion for basketball and for food (which is delicious, because Kagami is the one who makes it. He wields his new authority as captain well enough to effectively block Riko from entering the kitchen by coordinating a complex and well-executed plan to distract her with talk of ways to improve basketball practices using Alex, Izuki, and one of the second-years who has a surprisingly good head for strategy).

Even so, Kiyoshi makes his excuses early. Alex nods at him as he passes her and then he ignores the way her eyebrows waggle at him when Riko follows him outside.

"I need to talk to you about something," she tells him, "I'll walk with you to the station."

He nods. One day he might stop wanting to do everything anything he can for her. Today is not that day.

Riko puts her hands in her pockets as she walks at his side. She's nervous, and it makes him nervous even though he tries not to show it on his face. Kiyoshi can practically feel her brain work furiously, coming up with different ways to broach the topic and then discarding them immediately after.

Finally, she settles on, "It's good to feel like a part of the Seirin team again."

Kiyoshi rolls these words around in his thoughts, reflects on the time he's spent with Riko and Hyuuga and Izuki cheering today, and on the last few hours eating nabe with the kouhai who are now the senpai of Seirin and the unfamiliar persons of the team, so new and young and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that they make Kiyoshi feel old at nineteen, and is slightly surprised to realize to that he agrees entirely. "It has been good," he agrees, "I'm glad we did this."

Riko shoots him a look from the corner of her eye that he doesn't understand. "Do you ever—" and then cuts herself off, laughing softly to herself.

He waits for her to continue, but she doesn't. They spend the rest of the walk to the station in companionable but inexplicable silence.

"I have to get on the next train," Kiyoshi tells her.

She nods, and bites her lip. Irrationally, he wants to put his hands over his ears and run away before she can speak, but he doesn't.

"I missed you," she says, all in a rush. "I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you're playing basketball again. I wanted—" 

Riko cuts herself off again, strangely out of character and unsure. Kiyoshi hates it, and hates himself because he knows it's his fault. He doesn't know how to fix this, the strangely shaped connection between them, but he wants to try.

He reaches out, touches her cheek. Kiyoshi realizes too late it's strange and tries to compensate by cupping her face in both hands instead, but that's even worse because he naturally angles her face up to his like he is going to kiss her. Riko's eyes are wide and her hands come up to rest over his, like she's trying to keep him from letting go. 

Kiyoshi can't stop himself from meeting her gaze steadily. The mood is charged now, unambiguously romantic, and she's not protesting. He is pretty sure he should stop now. Let go. Smile, laugh it off, and walk away, throw back a casual 'I'll see you tomorrow' and maybe they can go back to being good friends who dated once in high school.

"I missed you too," he says, and leans down to press his lips to hers gently.

Riko does not move a single muscle for a long moment, during which Kiyoshi rapidly flits through at least four stages of mourning for their friendship. Then she lets out a soft, vulnerable sound in the back of her throat, and reaches her arms up and around his neck to pull him down for a proper kiss. They stay like that for long enough for both of them to get self-conscious, and she grabs his elbow so she can lead the him in a half-walk, half-shuffle to the side until they're tucked behind a corner of the station that affords them at least an illusion of privacy.

When they finally break apart, they are both pink-cheeked and panting. They stare at each other for a long moment, at a loss for what to do next.

Riko lets go of him to adjust her clothes and her hair. Kiyoshi coughs into a fist, and then it's his turn to put his hands in his pockets, feeling unsure and vulnerable.

"I should, um," Riko covers her face with her hands. "I left my bag at Kagami's, but I don't want to head back there now." He twitches in shock and her face flames in response to his alarm. "Not because I want to, um — we should head home separately. And we should talk about this. Again. Later?"

"Later," he agrees. There's a strand of hair sticking stubbornly to the corner of her mouth. He waffles for a moment, but a combination of affection and hope has him taking the liberty of brushing it away from her face. "I missed you," he says again, the words that he hasn't been able to say for a long time insistently pushing their way out of his chest. "I did. So much." 

Riko's eyes are wet. "Teppei," she says, but then takes a deep, steadying breath and steps away. He lets his hand fall to his side.

"Later, right?" Kiyoshi asks, half-hopeful, half-shy, with one hundred percent less guilt than he had thought he might feel. His head is spinning. He feels like he's gone off the rails, but also like he's never been so free before. _I'm being so selfish,_ he marvels at himself. He doesn't know how he is going to face Hyuuga later, but for this moment he doesn't care.

Her smile is brief, but wonderful. "Yeah," she says, her voice hitching on something Kiyoshi wants to think is joy and excitement. Maybe.

Riko watches him as he goes through the gates and boards the train. She waves as the train embarks, and he waves back until she disappears behind a row of apartment buildings all at least four stories high.

Kiyoshi rides the train all the way to his grandparents' house, face burning and his chest feeling too small for all the happiness he feels.

 

-

 

The first thing Aida Kagetora ever said to him was, "You are not good enough for my daughter."

Kiyoshi had taken those words like a bullet. No one had ever said such a thing to him, and he'd wondered how Riko's father had been able to diagnose him with a glance when he'd somehow managed to fool Riko into thinking otherwise.

He'd wanted to believe otherwise, though.

Too bad that hadn't been enough.

 

-

 

Kiyoshi wakes up the next morning to a series of loud bangs punctuated by someone cursing fluently in English. He checks his phone, realizes it is dead, and begins hunting around his old bedroom for an extra charger. He can't find one and resigns himself to leaving his room.

"Oho," Kiyoshi's grandfather creaks out from his usual place at the low table, where he is squinting at the newspaper when Kiyoshi emerges from his room. "Miss Alex is here. She's fixing the shoji door for us this weekend. Isn't that kind of her?"

"I could have done that," Kiyoshi says.

"Ah, but now you don't have to," his grandfather says wisely and nods firmly to himself without looking away from the newspaper. 

"Miss Alex is a good one," his grandmother adds, a note of agreement in her tone even though the two sentences don't quite match. "I wasn't sure what to expect from a foreigner like her when she decided to take you all the way to America, but she's been good to us. It was nice to have your mother come visit more while you were gone, too." Her laughter is a soft wheeze. "I guess she does worry about her old folks now and again!"

Kiyoshi smiles uncomfortably at her words. He had been surprised when his mother had stepped up to check in and care for them while he was gone. After she had moved to Osaka for work when he was young, they had met only a handful of times because she was always too busy until he'd let her know about his plans to go to America for rehabilitation. 

His grandmother notices and her laughter eases into an understanding, but wry smile. "Ah, we're all getting old," she says, shaking her head. "I feel like everyday I think of something new that I've done horribly wrong that is too late to fix. I suppose that means I've gotten wise!" She chuckles to herself.

There are a couple more loud bangs and frustrated vocalizations from the general direction of the garden. Kiyoshi's grandfather actually looks up from his newspaper. "Eh, Tecchan, you better go help her before she brings the whole house down."

Kiyoshi goes.

"Oh, Kiyoshi, perfect timing," Alex says when she sees him. "Hold this." Before he can respond, she simply props the shoji door against his body and really gets to work fixing the paper on the door.

They don't really talk much except for "Hey, can you pass that—" and "Does it look alright? I can't tell." Kiyoshi manages to ask her if she has an extra phone charger or something during a quick break, which makes her raise an eyebrow and ask, "Waiting for an important call?" but she doesn't press, just fishes out about five different wires for different devices and hands them to him.

"Why do you have so many of these?" Kiyoshi asks, bewildered.

"Better safe than sorry," Alex says, shrugging elaborately before she scolds him to hurry and plug his phone in so they can finish this paper wall business.

When she's done, Alex flops onto the deck dramatically and looks pleadingly at Kiyoshi until he does the work of putting the shoji doors back where they are supposed to be. When he is finished, Alex is sitting up and drinking some tea that his grandmother must have brought. 

He joins her when she offers him the second cup and they sit in comfortable silence for a while. Kiyoshi had never appreciated the way she can sit still and say nothing until they were in America and it seemed like people always needed to be saying something. 

Alex sighs, disrupting the quiet. "Something happened with the pretty Aida, didn't it?" 

"Yeah," Kiyoshi says. "Sorry."

"You couldn't have waited _one_ week," she mutters, "Now I owe Kuroko twenty bucks and he's going to be insufferable, I just know it."

Kiyoshi's shoulders hitch up a little defensively even though he wishes they wouldn't.

Alex is too sharp not to catch it and she taps him firmly in the chest. "Hey, none of that," she warns. "Stop thinking about stuff with your brain." 

Kiyoshi frowns as he tries to think this sentence through, then blushes. It makes Alex burst out laughing.

"I see where your mind really is," she says, extremely amused, then knocks her knuckles over his heart. "But I meant here. Your heart already knows what it wants. You just need to ignore your mind when it tries to say you shouldn't or can't have it. You remember what I told you the first time you actually admitted to me how you felt guilty about not being present for your friends and family here?"

Kiyoshi nods. "'You have a moral obligation to make yourself happy first, before anyone else,'" he quotes and shakes his head. "American nonsense."

"Hey!" Alex protests, and punches him in the shoulder, but she's smiling. Kiyoshi tries to tuck his own smile away, but it's easier to let the well-worn exchange lift the corners of his mouth up. Not for the first time, he feels grateful to her and the easy camaraderie that he has with her. Alex is like the older sister he never knew he wanted.

"Thank you," Kiyoshi says softly, not for the first time. "You saved my life."

She punches him again, this time in the thigh, rolls her eyes. "Well, you saved my career," Alex says, slapping him in the shoulder. "Fair's fair, eh?"

Kiyoshi is pretty sure she did that herself. "I suppose so," he agrees, and they go back to drinking tea and not talking.

Inside the house, his phone buzzes with a message.

 _Riko_  
Hey, are you free tomorrow for lunch?


End file.
